Quick answer
At 5 agents, Help Scout's free plan (up to 5 users) and Chatwoot's self-hosted Community Edition cost nothing on our 27 October 2026 read. Among paid hosted plans, Freshdesk Growth and Zendesk Support Team both cost $19 per agent per month on annual billing, and Freshdesk includes single sign-on at that price. Front starts at $25 per seat.
A help desk is priced per agent, the person answering tickets, so the bill tracks the size of your support team rather than the company. Five help desks below, priced from their own pages on 27 October 2026, at 3, 5 and 10 agents.
Cost by team size
Monthly cost, annual billing where printed, cheapest plan that fits.
| Help desk | 3 agents | 5 agents | 10 agents | SSO from |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Freshdesk | $57 (Growth) | $95 | $190 | Growth |
| Zendesk | $57 (Support Team) | $95 | $190 | Not readable |
| Chatwoot cloud | $57 (Startups)* | $95* | $190* | Enterprise |
| Front | $75 (Starter) | $125 | $250 | Professional |
| Help Scout | $0 (Free) | $0 | $250 (Standard)* | Pro (listed) |
*Billing period not stated on the vendor page. Chatwoot self-hosted Community Edition: $0 at any size, plus your server.
Full profiles: Freshdesk, Zendesk, Chatwoot.
Freshdesk
Growth $19, Pro $55, Enterprise $89 per agent per month, billed annually. No permanent free plan. New accounts get Enterprise features for 14 days. Two details set it apart: single sign-on from Growth, and 5,000 included "collaborators" on every plan, so staff outside support can join tickets without an agent seat.
Zendesk
Zendesk is the only one here that prints annual and monthly prices side by side: Support Team $19 or $25, Suite Team $55 or $69, Suite Professional $115 or $149 per agent. Support Team is ticketing alone. The Suite plans bundle more channels, and that bundle is where the price climbs. There is a 14-day trial and no free plan. USD, EUR, GBP and BRL are supported.
Front
Front prices per seat on annual billing: Starter $25 (up to 10 seats), Professional $65 (up to 50 seats) and Enterprise $105. Single sign-on and SCIM start at Professional. A 14-day trial covers Professional features.
Help Scout
Help Scout has the largest free tier here: 5 users, 1 inbox and 1 Docs site. Paid plans are Standard at $25, Plus at $45 and Pro at $75 per user per month. Pro requires at least 10 users, and Standard allows up to 25. The page shows a monthly/annual toggle with a 16% difference but does not label which period these prices are for, so read them as indicative. The Pro card lists SSO/SAML.
Is a self-hosted help desk worth it?
Chatwoot is the open-source option. Its README says it is "Released under the MIT License". The self-hosted Community Edition is listed at $0, "Free forever", with Premium Support at $19 and an Enterprise Edition at $99 per agent per month. In the cloud, a free Hacker plan covers 2 agents, 500 conversations a month and 30 days of data. Startups costs $19, Business $39 and Enterprise $99 per agent. Chatwoot says customer data can be exported through its API at any time.
Self-hosting is worth it when the agent count is large enough that per-seat fees outweigh running a server, or when data must stay on your own infrastructure. For three agents, the hosted free tiers above are usually simpler. Our hosting comparison prices the servers.
Which to pick
- Up to 5 agents, minimal spend: Help Scout Free.
- SSO required on a small budget: Freshdesk Growth.
- Plan to add voice and chat later: Zendesk, starting on Support Team.
- Up to 10 seats with a path to SSO later: Front Starter, then Professional.
- Data on your own server, or many agents: Chatwoot self-hosted.
Support tickets often start in a CRM. See costs for the same team size in our CRM comparison. Running projects alongside support? See our project management comparison.
Key points
- Help Scout's free plan covers 5 users, 1 inbox and 1 Docs site, the largest free tier among these five.
- Freshdesk lists single sign-on from its cheapest paid plan, Growth, at $19 per agent per month on annual billing.
- Zendesk prints both billing periods: Support Team costs $19 per agent annually or $25 monthly.
- Chatwoot is MIT-licensed and its self-hosted Community Edition is free; its free cloud plan stops at 2 agents.
- Front's Starter plan is capped at 10 seats, and single sign-on starts at Professional ($65 per seat).
Questions
Which help desk is free for a small support team?
Help Scout's free plan includes 5 users, 1 inbox and 1 Docs site, according to its pricing page on 27 October 2026. Chatwoot's free cloud plan allows 2 agents and 500 conversations a month, and its self-hosted Community Edition is free with no stated agent limit.
Which help desk includes single sign-on on its cheapest plan?
Freshdesk's comparison table shows single sign-on included from Growth, its lowest paid plan, at $19 per agent per month on annual billing. Front starts single sign-on at Professional, and Chatwoot at Enterprise. We could not read which Zendesk plans include it from the page text.
How much more does monthly billing cost on Zendesk?
Zendesk's page prints both: Support Team is $19 per agent per month annually or $25 monthly, Suite Team $55 or $69, and Suite Professional $115 or $149. For 10 agents on Support Team, monthly billing costs $60 more each month than annual billing.
Can I self-host a help desk?
Chatwoot can be self-hosted. Its README says it is released under the MIT License, and its self-hosted Community Edition is listed as free forever, with paid support at $19 per agent per month. You provide and maintain the server yourself; our hosting category compares options.
Why do Help Scout prices carry a billing caveat?
Help Scout's pricing page shows Standard at $25, Plus at $45 and Pro at $75 per user per month next to a monthly and annual toggle, but the text we read did not say which period those figures apply to. We publish them as printed and flag the uncertainty.
Who wrote this
Stackfeature Research Desk
The Research Desk is a shared byline, not a person. Work published under it is compiled from vendor pricing pages, documentation and licence files, each linked and dated in the piece. Nothing under this byline claims hands-on testing unless the piece says so and links the evidence.
Citing a figure from this page? Carry its date with it. Prices here were read on the date shown above, and corrections are logged.
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